Teaching Gender in Social Work - MailChimp

The presentation of the photo album in this article should serve as an
example, encouraging teachers to look for corresponding sources in their own
countries. A further important reason for presenting the photo album is that
common questions and principles dominated the development of social work
and social work education in the various countries. The photo album, presented
and commented upon below, can be used in class work, not only to
illustrate historical narratives and developments, but also to open them up to
questions and to create a connection to the observer and her history, to her
own experience and her own – often semi-conscious – inner pictures. For this
purpose, some “key pictures” can be viewed together in class. These images can
be interpreted and analysed, as demonstrated in an example at the end of this
article. But we can also analyse the album as a whole, looking at its structure
and layout, the choice and order of its themes and pictures, and the relationships
between the individual parts. Depending on students’ field of study and
where they are in the course, all this can be presented by the lecturer as an
introduction or worked through in the form of case studies by the students
themselves. Case studies lend themselves to use with the album as a whole,
with one of the two parts, or with individual pages or individual topics. It seems
important to me that in this process, sufficient space is given for spontaneous
impressions and associations. In this way there can be a discussion of personal
responses and of aspect that may unsettle or even disgust the observer.
I shall begin by presenting the album as a whole, page by page, with
only a few comments offering a basic impression. The first image shows the
cover of the album with its discreetly coloured paper. 3
On the opening page you find a dedication to Alice Salomon on the
occasion of the thirtieth anniversary of social work training in Germany. This
refers to the one-year training courses of the Mädchen- und Frauengruppen für
soziale Hilfsarbeit (Girls’ and Women’s Groups for Social Service Work), which
began in Berlin in 1899. The album was made by Siddy Wronsky – another
pioneer of social work in Germany – together with colleagues and friends of
Alice Salomon (figure 2). (All figures: see below on the pages between the first
and the second part of this article.)
3
All photographs reproduced in this article are held by Alice Salomon Archiv, Alice Salomon Hochschule Berlin.
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